Toxic Hurdle To Development

Noxious Leftovers Of Industrial Heyday Lurk At Riverfront

The developers of Adriaen's Landing must confront some old neighborhood ghosts -- toxic ones, at that -- if the domed stadium and convention center is to rise on Hartford's old east side.

Beneath the ground where Phoenix Home Life Mutual Insurance Co. plans to build its $300 million megaplex are a host of noxious substances, which in recent years have spooked other developers away.

FOR THE RECORD - Correction was published August 10, 1998 on Page A2.THE HARTFORD RIVERFRONT was lined with wharfs in the 19th and early 20th centuries, serving what was then a bustling industrisal district. The Hartford City Gas Lighting Co, (area A on map) supplied gas to Hartford from the mid-1800s to 1951. It was an around-the-clock operation, producing coal gas by passing air and steam through hot coals. A number of coal yards were located on the city's east (area B on map). Coal would unloaded from barges on the Connecticut River and pulled by trams to yards on Commerce Street. These operations probably have left contaminaints. Descriptions of sites A and B were omitted from a diagram on Page A14 of Sunday's Courant.[Library note: A map or diagram was included with this correction, but cannot be reproduced in that form here.]

They are residues from 19th century workshops and a coal gasification plant that brought the cozy glow of gas lighting to 80 miles ofstreets during Hartford's industrial heyday. Today, the poisonous leftovers are obstacles to the city's rebirth.

In 1990, United Technologies Corp. backed out of a deal to build its head office at Phoenix-owned property on Columbus Boulevard after learning that coal tar, a cancer-causing waste, was buried 40 feet below the site.

The coal tar presented a serious problem to UTC because of plans to dig out five stories of underground parking beneath the building, said Fred Johnson, director of environmental programs for UTC.

``It was bad for us because we had to put a big hole in the ground,'' said Johnson, who believes the coal tar spread underground from the former Hartford City Gas Lighting Co. plant several blocks away.

Johnson said UTC walked away from the site because Phoenix failed to assure it that getting rid of the contaminated dirt would not be prohibitively expensive. Trucking to an out-of-state hazardous waste treatment facility could make the cleanup cost ``tens of millions of dollars,'' he said.

``The risks were too great,'' Johnson said.

Phoenix officials are not yet talking about specifics, such as whether they believe they can build the stadium, convention center or other facilities without digging out the coal tar and any other waste discovered during construction.

But they point to their 1990 study, which shows the property is not so badly contaminated that its soil must be handled as hazardous waste. The study was completed for Phoenix four months after UTC started looking elsewhere.

How Did It Happen?

Coal gasification plants existed in virtually every American city before the turn of the century. They provided residents with the comforts of heat and light, but left a legacy of coal tar contamination.

The coal tar would typically sink into the ground and flow along the bedrock, spreading the pollution many city blocks from the original site, environmental experts say.

A 1988 study by GZA Inc. of Vernon found coal tar deposits in soil and ground water throughout the 5-acre property where the City Gas Lighting Co. once stood, on Columbus Boulevard near the Conland-Whitehead highway. The property is now owned by Connecticut Natural Gas, one of several owners whose land makes up the proposed Adriaen's Landing site.

An engineering contractor for the state Department of Transportation encountered contamination on Hartford's east side, bordering the Adriaen's Landing site, in the late 1980s, while doing survey work for the reconstruction of I-91.

Petroleum, solvents, coal tar and heavy metals ranging from low to severe in concentration were found along the length of the project, from the Conland-Whitehead Highway to I-84. In some places, coal tar was buried up to 60 feet.

Old city maps and directories show the Adriaen's Landing site was once a booming industrial area. Brass foundries, chemical merchants, dye makers, and machine shops clustered around what was then Hartford's port on the Connecticut River.

The Adriaen's Landing riverfront is where the coal barges docked in the 19th and early 20th centuries, unloading their cargo onto trolleys pulled up to yards on Commerce Street. The Hartford Coal Co. operated a big yard there for decades, right where Phoenix now envisions a multi-screen movie theater.

It is not known exactly what contaminants were left behind from these early businesses. But they operated at a time when people typically dumped whatever industrial waste they had.

Robert W. Fiondella, president, chairman and chief executive officer of Phoenix, has estimated site cleanup at as much as $25 million.

GZA, an environmental contractor hired by Phoenix, is testing soil throughout the neighborhood to map the pollution and write a cleanup plan.

Jon Sandberg, a spokesman for Phoenix, said he expects the environmental tests to be completed by the end of the summer.

How To Clean It?

State Department of Environmental Protection officials say it is possible that buried coal tar could safely be left at the site, provided the developers do not dig up the tacky, black residue.

Although coal tar contains chemicals known to cause cancer, a person would have to come in contact with the contaminants to be at risk.